


Turn that Frown (Upside-Down)

by Cecils_Third_Eye



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Bipolar Disorder, Crying, Established Relationship, Kevin is Inhuman, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not Happy, Permanent Injury, Post-Strex Kevin, Strexcorp is Evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 10:39:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10012655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cecils_Third_Eye/pseuds/Cecils_Third_Eye
Summary: Kevin would feel so much better if he'd only take his medicine. Or rather, he wouldn't feel at all.





	

It was a bad day. Kevin knew it the moment he blinked his inky eyes wide; the yellow comforter, drawn to his waist, seemed to constrict around him, an unrelenting, suffocating serpent, and the dark brown tattoos that stretched the length of his thin, sinewy arms squirming listlessly, transforming into unrecognizeable shapes and forms...

Weakly, he kicked at the comforter, attempting to dislodge the oppressive weight and only managing to further tangle himself in the sweltering cocoon. He whined, feeling an uneasy pressure begin to build in his chest. This was  _ridiculous_! It was a fucking  _blanket_ , for crying out loud! Was a blanket worth an anxiety attack? Black dots crept into the corner of his vision, the pressure transforming into a bone-crushing  _weight_ , and suddenly it was difficult to breathe. Apparently, his body had heard his rational, logical argument and had raised him a royal  _fuck you_. 

Panicked now, he struggled harder. His body, still heavy with sleep, vehemently protested such violent movement so soon after waking... A single, blood-tinged tear traced down his cheek, and he whimpered softly as his blanket prison, against all odds, seemed to  _tighten_ around him. What the hell kind of sick torture was this? He thrashed again, pain prickling down his spine as much too fresh wounds were aggravated - the smiling God was nothing if not effecient in doling out pain. Kevin would bear the wounds from his rebellion until the day he died.

Some days, he wished that that inevitable day would come sooner rather than later. Today, writhing in pain in a blanket cocoon on his bed, wheezing through the blistering  _ache_ in his chest, was definitely one of those days. 

He didn't even realize that the blasted comforter had been yanked off of his broken body until the familiar weight of his inhaler was pressed into his hand, a larger, darker hand closing around his own and guiding it to his chapped lips. "Open your mouth, Kev. That's a love." They took a deep breath together, pressed the pump together... once... twice... 

"D-Diego -," Kevin began, but Diego shook his head. Placing a finger over Kevin's chapped lips, he effectively silenced the Voice of Desert Bluffs... not that Kevin was protesting too terribly. 

"Here, you need to eat something so that you don't get the shakes." He handed him an apple, which Kevin accepted after a moment of hesitation. "Bad day?" He asked softly.

Kevin was silent for a moment, before he forced a smile. "I'm fine. There's absolutely nothing to worry about."

His chest was still painfully tight, even as he forced himself to eat the blasted apple. A tiny, inconsequential voice in the back of his head warns him to watch out for razor blades, and he could've sworn with the next bite he felt something thin and sharp slice into the delicate roof of his mouth. The coppery tang of blood floods his tongue... but he was not bleeding. It's the work of an overactive imagination, he knows, of paranoia creeping in in the wake of a panic attack that left him feeling particularly vulnerable. His chest tightened again. 

Symptoms of bipolar disorder include delusions, hallucinations, depression, manic episodes, irritability, and impulsivity... among several others. Not unlike the individuals it plagued, bipolar disorder can take many different forms. For Kevin, it was usually never more than a small voice in the back of his head, filling his brain with  _lies_ about everything,  _everything_ he need fear. 

Even a harmless apple, a gift of love from the man he trusted with his very life. 

However, there were occasions where his mania was so bad that he couldn't gather the strength to force himself out of bed, his paranoia so strong that even the comforter manifested itself as a very real, very deadly enemy, that little voice so... damn...  _loud_... that he just wanted to do  _anything_ , literally  _anything_ to silence it. These were the bad days, when bloody tears would streak down his tanned cheeks and his hands would shake from the albuterol pumping into his lungs and forcing him to  _breathe_. 

Would their smiling God want him, broken and bleeding as he was? Or would Strex Corp. realize their error in keeping him alive and finish what they'd started all those months ago?

"Have you taken your meds, love?" Diego asked, smiling happily when Kevin took one final bite, leaving nothing but a brownish core in his wake. Kevin's smile faltered slightly, which was answer enough for Diego. "Why not? You know that they'll make you feel better -,"

Kevin cut him off, his voice soft, "They don't make me feel better. They produce a chemical haze that temporarily corrects the imbalance in my brain, thus allowing me to put on a halfway convincing smile and force myself out of bed. But every time that I take them, a little bit of reality bleeds through the void: I'm not happy, not  _truly_ happy, and I never will be."

"How could you  _not_ be happy, knowing that there is a benevolent, smiling God looking down on us?" Diego handed him the little orange bottle, despite his earlier protests. 

Kevin stared at the pills ruefully, "Do you love me, Diego?"

"I love you." Came the gentle, yet firm affirmation. "I love you, and I... I want you to be happy, Kev. You know that I can't stand to see you cry."

"Then, please, don't make me do this."

Even if the bad days were absolutely horrible, Kevin relished the brief span of time where he could counteract the brainwashing his beloved town had been subjected to and  _feel_. Sure,  _feeling_ was largely unpleasant, and best to be avoided at all costs - why would he willingly subject himself to the wretched, painful abyss inside when he could just be  _happy_ 24/7? - but it wasn't that easy. The emotional pain was a part of him, something that Strex Corp. had yet to take away. 

The depression might mean all encompassing, crippling pain... but it was  _real_. It wasn't the horrible, manufactured happiness that Strex offered. 

Unfortunately, it was near impossible to convey this to someone who could never hope to understand. A flash of confusion crossed Diego's handsome face, before he shook it off. "Take them, for me? All I want is for you to be happy, love."

With a sigh, Kevin popped one of the red, ovular pills from the bottle and stared at it for a moment. "There will always be bad days, De."

"And I will always be there to help you through them." Diego said firmly. 

But this wasn't helping. Forcing pills down his throat in lieu of  _listening_ to him was just avoiding the problem. In fact, it was acting like there wasn't a problem at all. Kevin took the pill anyway - within moments, his tattoos stopped moving, returning to their natural tribal-marking state. "Better?" Diego asked. 

As soon as the medicine hit his blood stream, he found himself smiling against his will. "Much. I don't know what could've come over me. I was a real Debbie downer there for awhile, wasn't I?" He slid out of bed, inky eyes falling on the alarm clock on their beside table. "Heavens, look at how late it is! I'll have to work twice as hard to double my production output for today."

Diego was watching him carefully, dark eyes examining the hideous array of scars that littered the radio host's back. He had severe nerve damage from the Desert Bluffs Community Radio takeover. While he was not paralyzed, if he were to make physical contact with something from the waist down, he would be unable to feel it. Additionally, the damaged muscles were known to spontaneously spasm, causing prolonged bouts of intense pain. Usually, one of these flare-ups - a painful reminder of failed rebellion and thousands of what-ifs - triggered a 'bad day' for Kevin. 

This... This was the least that he could do, considering the hand that he had played in Kevin's ultimate downward spiral. Kevin needn't know that he was the one that had authorized the use of 'unethical brute force' - he himself had not known that he would be dealing with the conseqences first-hand until recently. So he'd do his very best to keep Kevin happy and smiling. 

Kevin, meanwhile, was happily preparing himself for another exciting day at the station. He gritted his teeth through the near-unbearable pain in his back, reminding himself that it was merely an issue of mind over matter. What did he normally do to numb the pain?... He couldn't remember. A tiny voice in the back of his head told him to climb back into bed and sleep it off, that he would feel better if he did. But that was absolute nonsense! There was far too much to do to stay in bed all day.

And Kevin knew, after pecking Diego on the cheek and promising to bring home Applebee's for dinner, that it was going to be a good day. 


End file.
